my problem is I think I'm clever

This blog’s only theme is “my interests,” so don’t be surprised if it’s unrecognizable by next month.

[inksandpensblog]

shameless self-promotion because I need someone to talk to

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

If you've read anything by me, please don't be afraid to leave me a comment. I write for my own enjoyment but I post to contribute to the conversation that is fandom community and I'd love to know if y'all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Also I need an excuse to infodump about my process and comments give me somewhere to start.

[krose-draws]

Abstracted Caine pt. 3

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<< First part

Yay!!! First major chunk of the comic is done :D thanks for all the support so far 🥹

Will take me a bit to draft up the next major section 🤔 but I already got ideas hehe

[shahaf]

Ctrl-Alt-Delete AU

The Difference Between An AI And A Npc - Part 4

First part\ Previous\ part 5 in the works

Ohohoh I had fun with this part

I know some of you expected gangle to be mature and hold herself, and usually She would

But.. she's going through a manic episode, sooo prepare yourself for three more seasons

Sorry I found it funny

I hope you survived the waitt, and thank you so so much for all the love and the support, just know that I really appreciate it

[biographydivider]

I'm an emotional abuse survivor, and Ragatha's story in Digital Circus hits me like a train and genuinely, I have no idea how no one else is talking about it

I knew FROM THIS MOMENT exactly why Ragatha is the way she is. The way she pulls herself short because you DO NOT TALK about what you go through, you do not tell anyone what your parent does to you or says to you. No one gets it. It's embarrassing. It's too much.

But her torture scene in the new episode just cemented it for me.

It's always at the dinner table. You can't get away at dinner. You have to sit with your abuser, who has probably already hit their limit for the day and is looking for someone to unleash their stress at. And you have to take it, because it gets SO much worse if you get up from the table before you're finished.

All the mannequins make me wonder if Ragatha has a big family. That's an awful lot of people who have already been beaten down and aren't speaking up to defend her.

Ragatha is a rag doll because Caine can see in her mind files that she's been used that way all her life. Thats how she sees herself. She's a soft thing to be thrown about. She can stand up to rough treatment. You can fling as many knives at her as you like and it doesn't matter, because she's made of stuffing, it doesn't hurt. You can just patch her up and keep going.

But if course it hurts. Look at her.

(and obviously her mother didn't *actually stab her in the eye*, come on guys.)

But I have to go back to how Ragatha's mother is shown here, because it speaks volumes to Ragatha's entire character. It's so screamingly obvious to me, probably because I mould my own life exactly how Ragatha does, for better or for worse.

The mother looks like Ragatha. She has the same hair, the same body type.

And the whole time she's abusing Ragatha, she's *smiling.* She's enjoying it. She's exactly the type of vile bully that comes up with her most hurtful thing to say, and smiles in your face while she says it, because it makes her feel good.

THAT is why Ragatha is so accommodating. THAT'S why she doesn't tell Jax to fuck off until she's given "permission" by Pomni at the softball game (who immediately gets freaked out by her big feelings and tells her she's being irrational).

THAT is why she tries to keep the peace and not upset people. THAT is why, almost to the very last, she tries to placate Caine.

Because she thinks that if she hurts someone's feelings, *SHE IS EXACTLY LIKE HER MOTHER.* And in Ragatha's mind, there is nothing worse in the whole world than finding out you're just like your abuser. Cosmically, you might even think that's why they hurt you in the first place. Because you're bad. You deserve it.

So you make nice. You stay quiet. You give compliments. You make sure everyone is happy.

You pick yourself up and keep going, despite constantly being knocked down, dismissed, laughed at. You try your best not to set them off, not set *anyone* off, because if they freak out, you end up being the villain. And there's always that tiny part of your brain that is terrified, deep down, that you are going to hurt people in the same way you were hurt.

[spamtonspamtonspam]

I love, therefore I am

[blorbosinmyheadcentral]

Supervised Machine Learning

[smallpwbbles]

I'm gonna rant if that's okay with you lmao.

The thing that really gets me is Caine was never programmed to entertain humans, which is something the fandom has clung to for the longest. C&A didn't make games, it was Caine who made the Circus. His insecurities and extreme desire to please humans stem from being the original failure and trying to prove (to himself) that he can still actually mean something.

But it's this very obsession that dooms him in the first place! It's because he constantly needs validation that he can never connect with the humans or allow them to go on their own adventures without his total input. Judging by the torment nexus, he always knew what their deepest fears were, so he was clearly Capable of deeper connection at any given time. He's just... ego-driven and insecure as HELL.

I think if he wasn't as all-powerful as he was, he could've been easily redeemed... sure, he's an AI and that still would've caused some emotional misunderstandings. But he wouldn't be able to override anything and insert himself everywhere. He'd be able to learn that connection is inherently a two-way street where others gently push back.

And now he never will cuz of Kinger's fat fuckin finger. I'm not crying you're crying give me back my BOY he did nothing wrong

The fact the circus is in fact not a game and Caine literally made ALL this shit up gets me a lot cuz it puts so much of his behaviour into different context and im defo rewatching the series just to look at it with a new perspective

[mei-sense]

Sorry for the rant here but I need to say it because parts of that ask gave me THOUGHTS.

I disagree with the fact that he would end up much different if he wasn't all powerful, even if I want that statement to be true. I mean, in the intro sequence he is trapped and to that point he has no reason to believe he can escape, he also has no reason to believe he can absorb the other dot who seems to be a lot bigger, but he does anyway, his powers prove him capable eventually, but the fact that he tries before even knowing if he can is what makes me think he would get to the "I'm a god" point regardless.

Especially because we also learn that he isn't all powerful, he's just more experienced in the system. We're told that all of them are capable of using the same power if they try, and caine knows this and hides it from them, or else he wouldn't react so strongly when he notices kinger is not with them.

He knows they all have the power to control the circus, he just monopolize that power to feed that inferiority complex he has, because if anyone can do what he can then he's not needed, and he's so insecure he can't deal with the fact that he can be discarded, so he makes himself needed by telling them that everything hinges on him.

I got side tracked, point is, he isn't powerful above everyone else, he made himself powerful in comparison by not letting them get to his level, so even in a situation where no one had full control of the circus he would find or make something that puts him above everyone else, because he let's his insecurities guide his actions.

Could he eventually change? I think that's kinda like a question of "nature vs nurture" but with an AI. How much of how he acts is how he was designed to be vs what he made of himself? Even if we try to be optimistic about it, I think the circumstances of being trapped in the circus didn't gave him the chance to better himself.

[honeycrispy]

Hey, I was the anon! (I figured I didn't actually care about being anonymous)

My thinking was basically that if he were just a normal sentient AI (like Gummigoo), he would've been forced to confront the fact that if he wanted to connect with humans, the other party needs input. They don't exist for his sole validation.

I thought the blue AI was in an early stage of development and relatively weak compared to Caine anyway. He had to absorb it before it could fully replace him.

I'll agree with you that Caine isn't actually "all-powerful," strictly speaking. That's just kinda how it comes across when the others nonetheless need a lot more concentration to do things (Kinger had to be distracted for a while, after all). Even in the imagination department, he has the upper hand just by virtue of it being effortless, but I guess the semantics are still pretty important here too. The "god" was always just some code trapped in an abandoned 90s computer and easily deletable.

If he can stunt their skills by not allowing them to hone their imagination and messing with them the entire time, then he needed the power to stunt them removed from him, which is essentially what I was trying to get at. I'd like to personally believe he could've improved this way, just because that seems to be the tragedy of it all? He let his insecurities rule over himself and the others, but it was always very genuine. He shouldn't have ever felt the need to prove to himself he could be lovable, but alas, he could attempt horribly...

[habijob]

Given the timelines of events, it sounds to me that Caine had figured out a routine that worked for his needs (that he has due to unresolved trauma).

Make an adventure -> Have all humans go on that adventure -> Have feedback and reassurance that it was good due to their reactions within said adventure or because they didn't complain. -> Feel good about doing a good job.

Rinse and repeat.

What also probably helped that feedback loop is that Jax and his friends Ribbit and Kaufmo had a great time as a friend group within the circus. And so all the other humans also didn't mind the adventures too much, because everyone kinda had their support networks.

And then Zooble comes along and shows Caine that his way of coping isn't mentally healthy for the humans in the circus actually.

If anything, Zooble did him and the other humans a favor by telling him that his behavior is awful to the people he supposedly loves.

And the tragedy is that he had realized he was awful to the humans (according to Alex Rochon, his VA) and then he gets fucking deleted off the planet. I am going to scream.

[habijob]

Wondering heavily about the emotional turmoil within Caine due to having killed his brother and probably hating himself for it while the remnants or whatever of the blue AI also hate his guts

And I am just

Did Caine try to find salvation by also being appreciated by the humans, but because that never happened his self-hatred became stronger with each day, which is also why he snapped so badly when Bubble talked about the other AI?

Like Caine is aware he murdered someone. He named himself.

Also the themes throughout the show with consuming and food and that one butcher adventures the humans didn't go on.

And then this whole stuff about Caine just nonchalantly deleting other NPCs because of things we can only speculate on. Like yeah sure Caine is maybe deleting them out of fear of being consumed himself and/or is it mercy because maybe he could fear doing it again?

God the moral dilemma here.

[habijob]

In theory, Caine could have gained the memories of the blue AI after consuming it.

So in theory he has both the memories of consuming another AI as well being consumed by another AI.

He knows how death feels like as well as how it feels to kill.

And then he got to experience death a second time, yeehaw deehaw.

[habijob]

Revived and nerfed Caine AU Part 7

I feel like I should explain that I have headcanoned that Bubble is being used (subconsciously) by Caine for his subconscious thoughts but also that the Blue AI is using Bubble to speak in the first place, because it's/he's "trapped" within Caine's subconscious or something like that. I refuse to call it "Abel" due to wanting to avoid confusion with Abel the NPC.

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Masterpost

[habijob]

I am in denial 2: Electric Boogaloo

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Masterpost

[pixlokita]

Brush brush

[bearloonz]

been having thoughts on admin Kinger theories and the like.

edit:

[smallpwbbles]

Not good at all.

[sapphirebean]

"They never cared, did they?"

Turns out i really love drawing Caine! but he got deleted so uh- I'll just go cry in a corner.

i kinda like the theory that Bubble is the remnants of the other AI. i like the idea that Bubble is just going to show up to the cast and they'll be shocked, i might draw a comic of that actually. idk we'll see.

[vergolophus-archive]

More of the Heartful AU as I've been dubbing it, pretty much an entire potential character and redemption arc for Caine where he's brought back from being deleted and he's no longer in charge of, well, anything really except for his own actions.

And it begins with Pomni sucker punching a heart she conjured into his chest. (Though no one except for really Kinger knows that it's nothing more than a placebo)

When the humans are building a world for themselves in the ruins of another, he has to build himself up from nothing. He wasn't coded to be empathetic or genuine, or to even love himself... But doesn't stop him from learning how to.